3 Excellent Personal Finance Books that everyone should read

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Although money management is a skill that anyone can develop, the problem is that most young people (and some people that aren’t so young) lack basic money management skills. This is the reason that there is so much credit card debt, high interest loans and a shortage of retirement and savings plans.

In many cases the skills needed to fix these financial problems are easy to learn and, with the right information, can be learned quite quickly. To that end, what we’ve put together for you, our dear readers, today is a list of 3 excellent personal finance books that everyone should read. These are all extremely popular books that have been reviewed by financial experts and given two thumbs up by all of them. (Heck, some of the financial experts use the ideas they gleaned from the very books we’re going to show you.) We’re not getting paid by any of the authors by the way, we just think they’re excellent personal finance books. Read them and learn. Enjoy.

As far as motivational literature is concerned, there’s one man who stands above all others and, indeed, his book is known as the’ granddaddy’ of all personal finance literature. When Napoleon Hill wrote Think and Grow Rich he wrote it from direct experience. The fact is, his ‘law of success’ philosophy was learned over a lifetime of money dealings and, in the author’s own words, “cost a fortune in the process”.

Mr. Hill dared to ask his readers the question ‘what makes a winner?’, something that at the time of its publishing was extremely bold. His book, which was originally published in 1937, has been updated several times and, although there are still lessons from the likes of Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie, there is also contemporary and anecdotal information from today’s financial winners like Bill Gates and Richard Branson. If you’re going to start reading personal-finance books, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better book to start with.

If you’re looking for a book filled with success stories that will inspire you and no-nonsenseinfo that’s much more than the usual crop of quick fixes, The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by author Dave Ramsey is the book you need. Ramses book is famous for not only providing an excellent, easy to follow finance information and advice but also for the way it gives people hope that there is indeed a way to achieve financial freedom or get out from under tremendous debt (when necessary).

What’s refreshing about Ramses book is that, while definitely a true blooded American, he doesn’t let any of the myths of the American dream get in the way of his common sense advice. In his opinion, all the American dream has done is fuel massive overspending and the resulting massive debt . As far as Ramsey is concerned there’s really no sense in trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ because they’re all broke. Instead he offers straightforward advice that anyone can use to take care of their finances, avoid debt, increase their savings and invest for retirement.

When author T. Harv Eker wrote his ground breaking book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth, one of the first things he did was make an incredibly bold statement. “ Give me 5 minutes and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life!” Mr. Eker’s belief is that by identifying a person’s “money and success blueprint” you can tell, in just a few minutes time, what their financial situation will be for their entire life.

Eker theorized that it doesn’t matter the background that a person has, whether it’s in marketing, stocks, world finance, sales or what have you, if a person’s money blueprint is not set to achieve a high level of success, they never will. Even further, a person who doesn’t have a highly successful money and success blueprint can receive a lot of money, such as an inheritance or the lottery, and in almost all cases they will go back to being poor within a few years. Luckily there is good news, as a person’s money blueprint can be reset so that an automatic and natural success pattern will be created.

These are 3 of the best personal finance books ever written and will give the average reader a real jump-start to their finance education. Read at least one and you’ll be more informed than the average college graduate about money, finances, investing and wealth. Read all three and, while it won’t guarantee that you’ll be successful, it will help you much when you get there.